


Imprinting

by IamShadow21



Series: Bits and Pieces [6]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (but not really), Acrobatics, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Art, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Based on a Tumblr Post, Bonding, Broken Bones, Captain America: The Winter Soldier Compliant, Character Study, Clones, Comfort, Control Issues, Coping, Drawing, Eating Disorders, Education, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fights, For Science!, Friendship, Gen, Gen Work, Gen or Pre-Slash, Gymnastics, Happy Ending, Hulk Smash, Hurt/Comfort, I Blame Tumblr, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Injury Recovery, Inspired By Tumblr, Kid Fic, Martial Arts, Meditation, Mentors, Minor Injuries, Not As Dark As The Tags Make It Sound, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Parent Bucky Barnes, Parent Steve Rogers, Parent-Child Relationship, Parenthood, Past Child Abuse, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Serum, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Recovery, Routine, Science, Science Bros, Science Experiments, Self-Defense, Self-Harm, Skype, Social Anxiety, Social Issues, Surgery, Trampolines, Trust Issues, Tumblr Prompt, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Yoga
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-28
Updated: 2014-09-28
Packaged: 2018-02-19 03:01:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2372060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IamShadow21/pseuds/IamShadow21
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world Outside is different for all of them. Each of them has to learn to find their own way, or find some one to help them through it.</p><p>Twelve children, ten tiny stories, and nine adults who are growing and changing just as much as the kids are.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Imprinting

**Author's Note:**

> This story is a gift to everyone who's left lovely comments on the last two stories, the art, or my author's notes. You're all wonderful, and you're totally the reason I played hookey from my pre-market knitting obligations to write self-indulgent kidfic. You're welcome. :)
> 
> The origins of this story are in a reply I made to a comment on the first story. I think I got every scenario I came up with in there, save for Kris actually meeting the Hulk, since I sort of stole that image to write Robbie meeting Hank in Little Soldier.
> 
> I have tagged the hell out of this. I have been over-cautious, so please, do not be alarmed. In some cases, I have used tags where the actual content is minor and only mentioned in passing, or where it's actually not really totally accurately representative of the content, but no better tag applies. 
> 
> For example, I have used ADHD because 'post-lifelong chronic heath condition energy buzz' is kind of a super specific thing, and '[kinesthetic learning style](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinesthetic_learning)' seemed like it would confuse people. Many people on the ADHD and autistic spectrums or who have another learning disability are kinesthetic learners, but not all kinesthetic learners have a disability. 
> 
> Also, I have tagged for self-harm, OCD, and eating disorders, even though a more accurate summary would be 'PTSD-related control issues due to being raised in a lab by evil Hydra scientists', but that's not very clear or punchy for those who need to know these things. None of them are necessarily enough to warrant diagnosis, but all of them are part of the aforementioned control issues, so, those of you for whom stories with patterns of pathological self-control are problematic, be aware they're there.
> 
> I tried to fit Sharon in this story, but it didn't work, so, sorry about her absence.

**Alexis**

The world is loud and busy and filled with people. There are lessons and bowls of ice cream and florets of broccoli like tiny trees in his dinner. There is a computer (who isn't actually a person with a body) who lives in the walls, and a special computer just for him, a tablet in a red plastic protective shell, that teaches him about English and mathematics, history and geography. There is a revolving cast of Avengers and Stark Industries people who watch over him and the others but who never make them hurt or make any of them go away. Robbie went away for his operation, but he came back, with a tiny collection of scars. He's not tired all the time any more, and he's loud and boisterous where he used to be quiet and fretful, so Alexis is more inclined to trust than he was. 

And then, there's Yasha.

Yasha doesn't live with them, and he doesn't stay long. He doesn't let them know when he's coming, but some days, he is just there, and Alexis lives for those days. Yasha is teaching Alexis how to run, how to hide, how to know when people are watching, and how to make his body move in precise, economical ways that carry all the power and weight his frame can muster.

Last time he came, he gave Alexis a pair of knives. They fit perfectly in Alexis's hands, and each has a black leather sheath with loops for a belt to slide through. Yasha had shown Alexis how to care for them, how to sharpen them, and, matter-of-factly, how to clean them if they got bloody.

Today, he is teaching Alexis how to place his feet noiselessly and to move quickly on any surface. Alexis is trying his hardest, but the soft-fall mats still creak and squeak under his steps.

“Better,” Yasha says anyway, and Alexis turns and walks away from him.

By the time he's reached the opposite wall and turned back, Yasha is no longer alone. Natasha is standing next to him, watching Alexis's progress with a knowing eye.

She begins speaking softly, but Alexis has excellent hearing.

“-teaching him tradecraft?” she says, but it sounds more like a statement than a question.

Yasha doesn't answer, doesn't even look in her direction.

“Does Steve know?” she asks.

“Don't see why it's any of his business what I teach my kid,” Yasha says, and Alexis feels a queer little twist of warmth deep in his chest.

“Oh, I don't know, maybe because you're turning the kid he's officially the guardian of into a soldier,” Natasha says.

“He's already a soldier,” Yasha snaps.

“I know,” Natasha says. “But there's a line. There's giving him back his power, and giving him skills that'll keep him safe, and there's training your successor.”

“I would never-” Yasha hisses.

“You're laying a foundation,” Natasha says, unyielding in the face of Yasha's anger. “How much of what you've already taught him can be augmented into things like infiltration? Wetworks?”

Yasha flinches, turns his face away from Natasha's. 

“You and me, we're not good judges of where that line is,” Natasha says, laying a hand on Yasha's arm. Yasha looks like he wants to twitch away but he doesn't. “Steve's got a clearer perspective. He won't let you go too far.”

Yasha swallows, rubs his flesh hand across his face. He looks shaken and pale. When he lifts his eyes to meet Alexis's, they're wide and full of something close to panic.

“Yasha?” Alexis asks, uncertain.

“Enough walking today, you did well. You can practice more tomorrow,” Yasha says, his voice rough.

“What now?” Alexis asks.

“Fine-motor training,” Natasha says, before Yasha can open his mouth. “Upstairs.”

Playing MarioKart doesn't feel like training, but Alexis enjoys it anyway. When Natasha hits Yasha with two shells, one right after the other, Yasha says a bad word in Russian and actually laughs aloud. It startles Alexis so much he turns to look, and drives right off the track.

Yasha looks better when he laughs, Alexis decides.

*

**Robbie**

The operation is frightening, but Robbie's never been very good at running away from things that scare him. He wakes up sore and sleepy. The others aren't there, but Tony is, sleeping in a chair with his hand wrapped around Robbie's.

The next time he wakes, Steve and Alexis are curled up in the same chair watching something on Alexis's tablet.

“You're all right,” Alexis says firmly. 

“I wanna see where they sewed me up,” Robbie decides, and when the nurse bustles in to change the bag attached to the needle in Robbie's hand, she allows them to peel up a corner of the tape to reveal the neat little lines in his skin.

“You'll have to take it easy for a while, but you should be able to play with your brothers soon,” Mr McCoy says, when he comes to visit.

Robbie hurts for a while, and is tired from the medicine that he gets, so being nice and quiet while the holes the doctors made in him slowly mend isn't too hard. He has plenty of good things to eat and interesting things to play on his tablet, and Steve is nearly always there to wrap him up in cuddles. Cuddles from Steve make him feel safe like Alexis standing between him and danger feels safe, like being swept up in Yasha's arms felt safe once he got his medicine and was able to breathe again.

Robbie likes feeling safe, but when he's allowed to play again, when he tests his limits and finds that he doesn't feel sick, that he doesn't need to nap, that his heart doesn't flutter all the time, Robbie just wants to keep going. 

Robbie starts to run, and then, he doesn't ever stop.

Why would he walk when he can practically fly from one place to another?

Why would he be quiet and back down when one of the others takes something he wants, when he can fight to snatch it back?

Why would he ever want to sleep at night, when he can be awake and playing?

“You wriggle like a worm in the mud,” Steve says, but he sounds like he's smiling, not like he's cross. He pets Robbie's back with one big, warm hand. Robbie has his own bed in a big room across the hall with some of the others, but when he was still sore from the hospital and had to take medicine in the middle of the night, he started sleeping with Steve, and he hasn't gone back yet.

“Watch the colours,” Steve says, and flicks on the night light.

Robbie does, obediently, though he'd much rather be playing the dancing game out in the big playroom.

When Steve starts talking to Yasha quietly on his tablet, Robbie wriggles around to look.

“You've got a stowaway,” Yasha says sternly, but his mouth twitches like he might smile.

“He doesn't sleep much,” Steve says, curling his hand around Robbie's shoulder and tugging him close. “He's good company.”

“Always figured you might be hyperactive if you didn't have to keep sitting down to wheeze,” Yasha says, and he's definitely smiling now, one corner of his mouth curling up. He's sharpening a knife against a stone, every pass a bright zing of sound. “Not that we used that word back then. 'Trouble' covered just about everything.”

“Think I had trouble pretty well nailed even with having catch my breath now and again,” Steve says, and Yasha snorts.

“You're not wrong,” he says.

Robbie sleeps a little, Steve and Yasha's voices drifting through his mind, and then, just as the dawn is breaking, he's awake. 

Steve is sleeping still, so he slips from the sheets and out to the playroom. His tablet is in its cubbyhole. He pushes the button to start it, and while the bouncing ball 'loading' screen is playing, he goes in search of food.

Why bother waiting for an adult, when he can climb the shelves like a ladder to reach the high-sugar cereal he wants?

The kitchen floor is very hard, as it turns out. He lies on his back, the world whirling slightly, and his arm on fire.

“Shit,” Clint says, some moments later, and kneels beside him. “Can you move your fingers?”

Robbie tries. He really does.

“I'm okay,” he attempts, but Clint just kinda laughs.

“Nuh uh, none of that. _You_ have a broken wrist that needs setting, and when it's set and wrapped in a cast, we're going to start you on lessons on how to fall,” Clint says, lifting Robbie carefully and heading for the elevator. He punches the number for Bruce's floor.

“I don't wanna fall,” Robbie grizzles.

“Kid, nobody wants to fall. But unless you plan on slowing down and thinking before climbing up the furniture, you should know how to fall so that you get bruised, not broken.”

Robbie hiccups against Clint's neck. He's not crying, not really, he's just shivering hot and cold all over and his arm really, _really hurts_.

“So, what is it gonna be?” Clint says, as the elevator slows smoothly. “More of this? Or a chance for you to do a bunch more bellyflops on the big mats downstairs?”

“Downstairs,” Robbie mumbles, and the doors slide open.

“Good choice, squirt,” Clint says, and presses a firm, bristly kiss to Robbie's forehead. “Hey Bruce? You up? I got a live one for you. Fire up the 3D printer.”

“And here I thought I'd be trying that out on you,” Bruce says, emerging rumpled from behind a piece of machinery, a cup of tea in his hand.

“Let's just see if you can get it made and on the kid before Steve wakes up and freaks the fu-futz out,” Clint says.

“I do like a challenge,” Bruce says, smiling. “JARVIS, can you do a scan for me? I need to make sure it's a simple break before I use him as a guinea-pig.”

“No tests?” Robbie asks, feeling uncertain.

“No tests,” Bruce tells him. “Just some medicine and a plastic frame to hold your arm straight while your bones mend. Okay?”

“My arm won't be like Yasha's arm, will it?” he asks.

“Nope, no robot arms for you,” Clint assures him.

“One needle though,” Bruce says. “Like the ones you had at the hospital, to make it hurt less.”

Bruce unwraps a needle and draws up a little fluid from a tiny bottle into it, then holds it out for Robbie's careful inspection. 

“Okay?” Bruce asks.

“Okay,” Robbie says.

The needle is a sharp pinch on top of the deep hurt of his arm, but it does make him feel less like he's going to be sick.

Watching the printer making the cast for his arm is pretty cool. Bruce lets him choose a colour, and Clint approves when Robbie selects a deep violet.

Steve's frowning hard and biting his lip when the elevator opens back onto the main floor. 

“You should have woken me,” he says, and for a moment Robbie thinks Steve's going to snatch him out of Clint's arms. Steve's face looks the way his own face feels sometimes just before he grabs something back from one of the others.

“It's a clean break,” Clint says, casually strolling past Steve with Robbie still in his arms. “I was already up, and Bruce was able to set it and cast it the moment the local anaesthetic kicked in.”

“I should have been there,” Steve insists, his eyes looking all over Robbie like he expects to see more hurts than the cast on Robbie's arm.

“It was a broken arm, Steve,” Clint says more quietly, easily reaching up and pulling down the box of cereal Robbie had been trying to reach. “Trust me when I say that I know what to do for a broken arm. I've had, like, ten of them.”

“I'm okay,” Robbie says. “Bruce fixed it, and Clint's gonna teach me how to fall off stuff.”

Steve's eyebrows shoot up.

“In a controlled environment, jeez, put that face away,” Clint says, pouring milk all over the bowl of cereal. He kicks a stool out and puts Robbie down on it, then digs through the drawer for a spoon.

“You're still judging me with your face, Cap,” Clint says. “Though I have a long history of breaking stuff, I also have a long history of not breaking everything every time.”

“Maybe Natasha should sit in,” Steve says, but he's almost smiling.

*

**Luc and Brant**

There are lots of great things about Outside. 

Cartoons. Popcorn. Bunk beds. Lego kits that come with little motors to make the car you build actually roll along the floor.

But above everything else, the thing that Brant and Luc love best about Outside is tumbling class.

The big gym was a maze of punching bags, weights machines and treadmills when they first saw it. Since then, the machines have been shifted to take up a small corner, and the rest of the space is covered in soft-fall mats. There's a balance beam, a climbing frame, and an enormous trampoline. 

Today, there's a slack rope stretched above the floor and Clint is showing off while Natasha watches him with an indulgent smile. Robbie is jumping on the spot in excitement at her side, eager to try even with his arm still healing.

Clint somersaults off to land on his feet, and tells those eager to have a go to form an orderly line.

Natasha leaves Clint's bunch to stand in front of Brant and Luc. “So, slack rope, or balance beam?” she asks.

“Balance beam,” they say together.

Though they've been working separately on the beam for a few weeks, now, Natasha's started to integrate paired manoeuvres. They've mainly been practising on a line marked out in tape on the mats, but today, she wants them to try few of them for real on the actual beam.

“Fall smart,” she says before they even get up there. “Only one of you bunch is allowed a broken bone at a time. Steve can't take the stress,” she says.

“I heard that,” Steve says. He's over with Alexis, doing something that looks kinda boring. It's a lot of standing in different positions, and moving like fighting in slow motion.

“You're one bad bump on the head away from wringing your hands and crying about how bad you are at parenting,” Natasha says, and nods at Luc to take his run-up. He hits the springboard perfectly, and lands on the beam with only a bit of a wobble. He knows he needs to move down to make room for Brant, so he does a little leap, kicking his legs out.

“Good form,” Natasha says, and the beam shakes a little when Brant lands neatly behind him.

What they're doing isn't anything like videos they'd watched on Youtube of the Olympics, or the World Championships. It's something they heard Clint once call “the bastard child of circus folk, acrobats, dancers and _traceurs_.” Which sounds _awesome_ , and when Clint, Natasha, sometimes Steve, and (very rarely) Yasha do it, it really does _look_ awesome.

Brant and Luc both know they're miles away from ever being anywhere near that good, but when they pull off a position, when they land a jump or co ordinate a paired manoeuvre _just right_...

Well.

There's a lot to love about Outside, but that has to be the greatest thing in the world.

*

**Liam**

Outside is terrifying. 

The lab was awful, with the tests and the needles and the doctors, but it followed a pattern.

Outside, as far as Liam can tell, has no pattern. 

The food is different every time, or _comes_ at a different time, every time. The people who take care of them are different too. Steve's around a lot, but even he can't fully be relied upon to be there every time Liam wakes up.

The first time Steve caught him crying softly in his bedroom and wrapped him up in a gentle hug, Liam had to bite down so, so hard on the words, _I just want to go back._

Not because they aren't true in a twisty-turny way, but because there are a lot of ways they aren't true for real, and Liam doesn't want to hurt Steve by saying them.

Besides, there's nothing to go back _to._

So, Liam has to make his own rules.

He chooses to eat toast for breakfast, nothing else. He allots himself twenty minute bursts of learning on his new tablet before he has to run a couple of laps around the room.

If he's feeling really shaky, he discovers he can give himself a sharp pinch or two when nobody's looking, and it calms him down. Sometimes, they bruise.

Nobody notices.

Until somebody does.

Liam's hand is caught in a huge one, and gently tugged away.

Thor is the loudest, the most chaotic of the adults who visit the Tower. He has a voice that fills the room and a booming laugh that echoes down the hallways. He can carry as many of them as Steve can with ease, and seems to enjoy tossing the little ones in the air and catching them as much as they do. But right now, his face is solemn and knowing, and Liam feels his eyes fill and his cheeks grow hot.

“Why would you mortify yourself so?” Thor asks, and his voice is pitched so softly only Liam can hear.

“Because it reminds me to be brave,” he says in a hush, a tear or two spilling over.

Thor nods seriously. “You are already brave, little one,” Thor says. “True courage lies not in remaining standing under the blows, in weathering pain like an oak in a storm. It lies in trusting your fellows enough to take off your armour. To show them your weaknesses, and to call for their aid when you need it.”

“I don't feel very brave,” Liam says in barely a whisper. 

“You have endured much, and this world is strange to you. I was a stranger myself, here, not long ago. I must confess, there are still times when I find myself confused, or lost, or frightened,” Thor says. 

Liam looks at the size of Thor, the expanse of his height and breadth. His arm muscles are as big as Liam's head, and the hammer he sometimes carries is too heavy for anyone but him to pick up.

“You don't look like you'd need to be scared of anything,” Liam points out.

“Well, I am. And far more often than you might think,” Thor says, his lips curving up into a smile.

Liam looks down at the little red patch of skin on his arm, dimpled from the bite of his fingernails.

“You won't tell?” he asks.

“I will not,” Thor says. “You will.”

Liam cringes.

“Not as punishment,” Thor assures him. “I will not force you. But I think you will choose to, because I know you can be courageous enough to let others take this weight from you.”

Thor doesn't speak any more, just slings one of his huge arms around Liam and tugs him close.

Liam still eats his toast, still does his lessons in self-imposed increments, still feels scared.

He tries not to pinch himself, but sometimes, it's the only thing that'll stop his heart from racing. 

One day he wakes up while the sky outside is still a deep grey, and feels like he's about to shake out of his skin. He shouldn't really go to the gym without an adult, but there's a big trampoline there, and bouncing helps the knots inside his chest unwind sometimes.

The gym isn't empty.

Bruce is sitting on one of the mats with his legs crossed, breathing deeply.

Liam watches him for several long minutes before he feels brave enough to inch closer.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

Bruce's eyes open slowly. “Meditating,” he says.

“Why?”

“Because it helps me keep my emotions nice and quiet,” Bruce says.

“Your feelings get loud?” Liam asks, and Bruce actually grins.

“ _Very_ loud,” he says.

“Me, too,” Liam confesses, and he trembles with the significance of having spoken the words aloud.

“Do you want to learn?” Bruce asks.

Liam nods, and Bruce gestures for him to sit opposite him.

“Now, the first thing we're going to do is breathing while sitting, and then maybe later we'll do some exercises with it, okay? Not like tumbling, more like what Alexis has been doing with Steve. Okay?”

Liam thinks about Alexis slowly moving on the mats, placing his feet and hands where Steve tells him, in a predictable, logical pattern, and it sounds good to him.

“Okay,” he says.

The next time Outside is too chaotic, too difficult to handle, Liam closes his eyes, breathes deeply and finds his centre.

It doesn't make everything magically all right, but it does help.

*

**Felix and Fido**

“Oh, no, no, no, and again, no,” Tony says, hands out flapping in front of him. “Captain Spangles would actually pout me to death if you two came in here and got hurt.”

Felix and Fido have their faces pressed to the glass of the entryway to Tony's workshop. Inside, there are cars, engines, and machines that move about on their own. Right now, a robot arm is replacing bits of a socket set into a steel case. Well, it's trying.

“But...” Felix tries.

“No buts,” Tony says, and slips inside the workshop leaving the two of them on the outside.

“We can still see you,” Fido points out.

“Like I care,” Tony says with a sunny grin. “This is an adults only, you must be above this line to ride this roller coaster,” he holds his hand up to his shoulder, “no tiny children space,” he concludes, waving a burger he pulls from the bag he'd been carrying to emphasise the point, before peeling back the paper and taking an enormous bite.

He sits on his stool and continues to eat, staring the kids down while they stare back at him.

“I'll have you know I've stared down a kid before, and he was much bigger and more heavily armed than you guys. Potato gun. Fantastic aim. And it was his home turf. Here? My turf, my workshop, my big glass wall stopping you from stepping a toe over the threshold. Though, admittedly, he did more than just threaten me, he fanboyed all over my Suit and sassed me, he didn't just creepily watch me which is genuinely starting to freak me out,” Tony says, taking another enormous bite. “You've really got this whole horror-movie-twins thing going well for you right now, and I'm legitimately scared you're going to fly right through the glass at my face and murder me.”

“We're not twins,” Felix says.

“Actually, because you're clones, I think you're technically all twins. Septuplets? Octuplets, if you count Steve's cyborg boyfriend,” Tony says. “Don't think you can persuade me by being pedantic. You're still too small for the awesome big boy toys.”

“You built engines when you were smaller than us,” Fido points out.

“Never should have shown you that. That's what I get for trying to sway some of you to the beauty of engineering rather than the squishy, theoretical sciences or the arts,” Tony says, shoving the final large piece of burger into his mouth and balling up the paper. “Right, time for me to do actual, grown-up work, time for you two to leave, or stay there and get bored, whatever, I don't care.”

“You wanna stay?” Felix murmurs to Fido.

“I'm staying,” Fido says determinedly.

Ten minutes later, Felix is trying to hold onto the blowtorch firmly through the voluminous stiff leather of Tony's welding gloves. 

Fido is up next, but for the moment, Tony is talking him through the right proportions of ingredients for a wheatgrass smoothie while one of the robot arms is fidgeting nearby.

“Lid on and hands _out_ before any buttons get pushed, or I am not going to be held responsible for missing fingers. I will laugh and point with my intact fingers,” Tony says. Fido pokes out his tongue, so Tony puffs out his cheeks and crosses his eyes. “How's it going, Thing One?”

“It's tricky,” Felix admits, trying to stop his arms from wobbling.

“You're doing fine,” Tony says, and one rough, greasy hand cups each of Felix's forearms. “People talk a lot of crap about slow and steady being the way to go, but jumping in feet-first is pretty awesome, too.”

“I wanna try on the Suit next,” Felix says.

Tony laughs in his ear, the sound almost a giggle. “You're a scream. Not in a million years.”

*

**Colin**

“You hide in here a lot,” Colin says, and Bruce jerks up like he is surprised to not be alone.

“I'm not hiding,” he says, but he doesn't meet Colin's eyes.

“What are you doing, then?” Colin asks.

“Working,” he says, and gestures out across the room, across benches, machines and heavily laden bookshelves.

“What kinda work?” Colin asks, climbing up onto a stool and sitting down.

Bruce fidgets, then settles on a stool of his own. “Chemistry.”

“Like medicine?” Colin asks.

“Sometimes. But a lot of the time it's just putting two things together to make a new thing. Or putting things together to cause a reaction, like when Tony put that bottle of vinegar and the whole box of baking soda together in the sink with the food dye,” Bruce says with a little smile.

“That was really messy,” Colin says. “There was a robot that came and cleaned it all up. Is chemistry always messy?”

“Not always. Sometimes, it's not messy at all. And sometimes, you've got to be really, really patient,” Bruce says. “You've got to not mind waiting for results.”

“I don't mind waiting for things,” Colin says, and it's mostly true. 

He asks Bruce if he wants to come upstairs and watch Despicable Me with the rest of them, but Bruce mumbles that he's doing something he needs to stand there for, so Colin just nods and leaves.

He comes back the next day, right before lunch. Sharon's visiting for the first time since they flew away from DC, so Steve has laid out a huge spread of salads, finger foods, cold cuts and chicken wings. There's a pile of bread rolls half as tall as Kris which Colin himself helped to butter.

“There's food,” he says, and Bruce bumps his head on the underside of the table. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” Bruce says after a little groan of pain.

“Are you still working?” Colin asks.

“Yeah, still working,” Bruce says and straightens up. He mashes the power button on the machine on the desk, and it starts whirring.

“More chemistry?” Colin asks.

“Yep,” Bruce says, and runs a hand through his hair.

“Can I see?”

Bruce looks up properly at Colin for the first time. “There's not much to see,” he says, gesturing at the machine. “It's all in there, synthesising.”

“Not messy,” Colin says.

“Not today,” Bruce says with a smile.

“Are you coming to lunch?” Colin asks.

“Maybe later,” Bruce says, but he doesn't come at all.

Two days after that, Colin sits and watches Bruce fill lots of different test tubes with clear liquid from something called a pipette. They spin around really fast in a machine called a centrifuge, and then they get put in another machine to do something else that Bruce tries to explain but gets distracted halfway through.

Four days later, Bruce is writing what looks like really complicated math on a whiteboard.

Colin scrunches his face. “Chemistry?” he asks.

Bruce smiles. “Physics,” he says. “Math about how the universe works. How fast things can go, what happens when stuff hits other stuff, how light and sound move.”

“Math can tell you what happens before it does?” Colin asks.

“Sometimes. Sometimes stuff happens, and you have to write the math to make it make sense,” Bruce says, and that makes Colin's brain feel a bit bendy and confused.

“You write your B's funny,” he says, to fill the silence.

“Uh, that's beta, actually. It's Greek, not English,” Bruce explains. He ends up clearing off part of the board and writing out the Greek alphabet for Colin.

“Can I get this on my tablet?” Colin asks after studying the strange-but-familiar letters for a long while and asking about each one.

“Um, sure. I think so. JARVIS?” Bruce asks, looking up at the ceiling. “They got any apps for equations for pre-teens?”

The game that turns up on his tablet is really hard, but fun. The chime when he makes something work makes him bounce a little in his seat, every time. 

“Bruce is seducing you to the theoretical side, which I'm not gonna allow without trying to woo you to the side that gets to blow stuff up,” Tony says one day.

Tony ends up dragging all of them plus Bruce out to a big bare gravelly place, and they build their own trebuchet, which Colin has to admit is awesome. Even Bruce looks like he has a good time. He smiles a lot more than usual, anyway, and laughs at least twice.

The next day, though, Bruce is back in his lab. Colin turns up at twelve thirty with his tablet and two big sandwiches.

Bruce blinks. “Thanks,” he says, and takes a bite. It's a big bite, like he's actually hungry, not like he's just being polite.

“It's okay,” Colin says, and chews on a corner of his own.

“I don't know why you keep coming down here,” Bruce says eventually, when all the sandwich is gone. “I'm not very interesting.”

“But you are,” Colin says, and Bruce's cheeks go a little pink.

“And it's quiet down here. I like the quiet,” Colin says, pushing the button on his tablet to power it up. When the array of icons appears, he taps the equation app. It's not until it's open all the way that he realises that Bruce is just watching him, a little smile on his face.

“Me, too,” Bruce says.

*

**Simon**

“That's not a toy,” Steve says, and Simon jumps so hard he loses his grip and the shield falls to the floor with a clatter.

Steve's face is stern, almost worried. Simon feels guilty, though he isn't sure why he should. He wasn't trying to take it. 

“I wasn't trying to take it,” he says aloud, because he wants Steve to know that.

“I know you weren't,” Steve says. The hard lines of his face soften, and he ruffles Simon's hair. “Go play with the others. Have you done your lessons today?”

Simon scuffs at the carpet with his toe. “Kinda,” Simon says, meaning he'd done a little of a couple of the subjects he liked, and avoided completely the ones he didn't care for.

“I know it's hard trying to learn things you don't feel like learning, but it's important,” Steve says.

“I know,” Simon sighs, and shuffles off to retrieve his tablet. The case it's in is blue and scratched all up one side from the time he dropped it down the stairs. By accident.

“You have to try harder to break something I made,” Tony snorted when he saw the damage. “By which I mean absolutely never do it again, kid,” he amended, then pulled a face at Steve, who was glaring at him across the room.

Learning is boring. Sitting still and learning is _even boringer_ , though Steve says that isn't a word.

He'd tried to argue for taking his tablet to the gym and bouncing on the trampoline during lessons. It had been pointed out that he wasn't allowed on the trampoline without an adult spotting for him, and that it wasn't fair to the others if he got extra trampoline time on top of tumbling class with Clint and Natasha.

Instead, a tiny trampoline had turned up in the corner of the playroom one morning, along with an assortment of brightly coloured gym balls that they could sit on instead of the floor or the cushions or the sofa. After that, Simon _always_ sits on a gym ball, _always_ a blue or a red one, and _always_ takes breaks to jump on the little trampoline when it is free. His main competitors for trampoline time are Kris and Robbie, now that Robbie's heart is better. They'd scuffled over bouncing time about a dozen times before a big, brightly-coloured hourglass on a suction cup got stuck to the wall, and now, when the sand is all gone, they have to swap over.

Simon knows all the rules, knows why he needs to learn, and knows that the shield is not to be touched, ever.

He's pretty good at sticking to everything but the last part.

One day, he's doing his lessons like normal, bouncing like normal, and going back and forth from one to the other, even though _Sam is there_ and Sam visiting is always lots of fun. He's being good.

And then, on the way back from the bathroom, he sees it. Propped just inside Steve's half-open door, shiny enough to see his face in, to see his blue shirt in. The shirt is getting soft and faded with washing, and the red on the shield decal has rubbed off so much it's almost pink.

He stands looking at the shield for a long time, until a shadow falls over him.

“I wasn't touching it,” he says.

It's not Steve. It's Sam, and he's looking down at him with knowing eyes.

“I promise,” he insists, and Sam smiles.

“I know you weren't,” Sam says. “You wanna go to the park?”

“It's lesson time,” Simon says, thinking of his neglected tablet with its battered case.

Sam shrugs, like it's no big deal. “Lessons at the park, then.”

“For everybody?” Simon asks.

“Just you and me. Special field trip,” Sam says.

“But Steve says-” 

“Already asked Steve. Just get your shoes on, and we can go.”

Simon doesn't wait for Sam to change his mind, just rushes into his room and shoves his feet hastily into his sandals. He mixes them up before getting them the right way round, which makes him worry that Sam really _will_ change his mind, so he bolts down the hall at a definitely-running speed and skids to a stop in front of the elevator where Sam is waiting.

“Let's move out,” Sam says, and they ride the elevator all the way down to the lobby.

The sun is shining outside, as bright as anything. The sky is big and blue (blue like his tablet case, like his t-shirt, like the blue around the star on the shield) and filled with fluffy soft clouds. The park is very green and full of lots of different people and sounds and smells and dogs. Simon likes dogs. One day, he might even be brave enough to pet one.

“I forgot my tablet,” he says, and the realisation that they have to go all the way back, that they have to _leave_ , is crushing.

“We don't need it,” Sam assures him, and pulls out a plastic disc the size of a dinner plate. It's blue, with a sticker on top that looks like the decal on Simon's shirt. Simon doesn't know what it is, but he want to touch it. He bunches his fists so he doesn't.

“You can take it,” Sam says, and after a moment's hesitation, Simon does.

“What is it?” he asks, tracing the star with a fingertip, like he'd traced the star on Steve's shield a dozen times.

“It's called a Frisbee,” Sam says. “And I'm going to show you how to throw it while we talk about math, okay?”

The Frisbee is _so fun_. When it's thrown just right, it glides through the air, and Simon can just imagine it bouncing off the heads of a dozen bad guys, like Steve's shield does on Youtube. He even forgets how much he normally hates math, and gets all the way through to the end of his four times table with only a little prompting.

“So, you like it?” Sam asks, as they walk back to the tower.

Simon has his Frisbee tucked up under his arm, held tight and safe so he won't lose it, ever. “I really really _super_ like it,” he says.

“But?” Sam asks. 

“It doesn't come back,” Simon says.

“No, it doesn't,” Sam agrees. “But if you study real hard, I'll get you a boomerang for your birthday. It's a bit trickier, but I bet Steve can teach you how to make it come back when you throw it.”

“No, he won't,” Simon sighs, and his good mood drops right down through his shoes with his stomach when the elevator rises.

Three days later, though, when Clint is home and Bruce is doing science on a big black tablet in the playroom rather than down in his lab, Steve turns to Simon and says, “Get your shoes on,” and Simon does. They go to the park and play with the Frisbee and Steve makes it go _really super far_ by accident, and Simon gets all the way through his four times table without any help at all.

“Not so hard this time,” Simon chides when he hands the retrieved Frisbee back to Steve.

“I'll try and do better,” Steve promises with a smile, and Simon thinks that maybe he's talking about something different altogether.

*

**Connor**

Connor likes the world Outside just fine. It has Legos and crayons and markers. He has his very own tablet in a yellow case that he can draw on with his finger or with a little pen that hides in the side of the case and is attached to it by a little cord so it doesn't get lost. The world Outside has music and cats doing funny things on the internet and a bed that's actually a big soft cushion inside a little tent. When he wants to, he can shut the door and stay inside. Most of the time, though, he leaves it open.

The thing Connor likes maybe the best is all the new people.

There's Steve, who's nearly always there, and always good for hugs. 

There's Thor, who throws them up in the air but never, ever drops them. 

There's Tony, who is lots of fun because he talks a lot and does things like buy every flavour of ice cream from a big ice cream place just so they can all taste each one. 

Natasha and Clint are really good at helping them learn to do new things with their bodies, rather than just making them run all the time like the doctors did. 

Bruce doesn't visit the playroom much but he makes really really nice food for everyone from things he gets from the market, rather than just paying a man in a cart or a restaurant to make it for them. 

Yasha doesn't visit much, but each time, Connor thinks he stays a little bit longer. Last time, he even fell asleep watching a movie with them, and when Connor climbed out of his tent at breakfast time, he was sitting in the kitchen all rumpled and sleepy, frowning fiercely at Steve.

“Drink your coffee,” Steve just said, rather than looking scared, and to Connor's surprise, Yasha did.

Sam and Sharon sometimes come over for a day, or for a party, but they don't stay long.

Pepper is Connor's favourite.

Her hair is browny-orange, which other people call red. Sometimes it hangs down her back, sometimes she twists up on top of her head, and sometimes she ties it behind her, and it lies over her shoulder like a long, shiny rope.

Her skin has little freckles on it, like Connor gets some of on his nose and cheeks in the summer, and her smile makes him feel all warm and happy inside.

But as much as he'd like to be near her whenever she's around, he finds he can't make his mouth say the right things. He tries to talk, and what comes out sounds _so stupid_ that he has to make himself stop talking and go and hide until his face stops burning like a sun.

Times like that, he _very definitely_ shuts the flap on the tent behind him.

The others and most of the grown-ups know that the flap being closed means _go away_ , but there's a rustle on the fabric as a person taps on the outside.

“May I come in?” Pepper asks.

“Okay,” Connor says, even though his tongue feels thick in his mouth, like it doesn't fit right.

Pepper peels open the Velcro and climbs inside. She sits down on his cushion bed with the Cars quilt cover in her nice white suit and her stocking feet, and looks all around Connor's little space.

“I love your tent,” she says. “I might have to get one myself.”

“Thanks,” Connor says.

“I didn't mean to upset you,” she says.

“I'm not upset,” Connor says, tracing a crease in his bedding with his foot.

“You look pretty upset,” Pepper says. “Did I say something wrong?”

“No. I did,” Connor says. 

“Ah,” Pepper says, and nods like she understands.

“I always say the wrong things,” Connor elaborates, because he's pretty sure Pepper's never said a wrong thing in her _whole life_.

“Talking is hard sometimes,” she says. “But I promise, you didn't say anything wrong. And even if you did, I wouldn't think badly of you for it.”

“Promise?” Connor asks.

“I promise,” Pepper says, and draws a little cross over her heart with a fingertip. “Now, do you want to come back out with me, or stay here a bit longer?”

“Bit longer,” Connor says, and Pepper just smiles and says okay, like that's fine.

Connor curls up under his blanket for a while and watches the green ceiling of his tent until his heart slows down back to normal. When he rejoins the others, nobody makes a big fuss or asks him where he's been. Pepper makes sure he's got a slice of the cake she brought, but apart from that, she doesn't try to make him talk. 

It doesn't get any easier to say the right things, and he always thinks of better things to say later, but he feels less sad about saying the wrong things to Pepper. He thinks that maybe she meant it when she promised.

*

**Vincent**

It's a Bad Day. Vincent has a lot of Good Days, plenty of Okay Days, but today is a Bad Bad Day 

He liked his Spanish okay, but he hated tumbling. He fell off the big trampoline and landed where the mats didn't quite meet, and he felt the hard of the floor under him when he landed.

“No broken bones,” Clint says in a kind of question. Vincent was able to stand up okay, but he'd cried in front of everybody, and he has a big bruise on his hip.

He took his pants off later, because it was hurting the bruise, and Steve frowned and made him put them back on anyway.

And now, some of his pencils are missing. 

At his first birthday party _ever_ , one of his presents was special pencils that came in a little tin, twelve of them, all in a row. The leads were soft and smooth, and if you used a paintbrush with water on the drawing you did, they all went painty and blended together. They're special artist pencils, Steve had said, and Vincent always, always put them back safe.

The blue and the red are gone, just gone, not in the tin, not in his cubby, and not on the table where he had them last. He thinks back to all the times one of the others has shown interest in them, when he's caught them 'just looking' at them, when there had ever been a moment when one of them tried to barter for the use of just one, 'just for a little while'.

Vincent decides on a likely culprit, and slugs Simon right in the eye.

There's a bit of a melee after that, which takes a full ten minutes, six Band-aids, two inhalers and an icepack to sort out.

Steve looks all frowny and stern, like Vincent has let him down, like Vincent was supposed to be _better_ , and it's been a Bad Bad Day.

Instead of being put in time out, Vincent ends up curled up in Steve's arms, on Steve's bed, explaining through hiccupping sobs why he hates Outside, why he hates the others, and tumbling, and his pants and his _stupid, stupid name._

“I know,” Steve says gently, petting Vincent and rocking him while he cries. “Some days, everything in the world feels stupid.”

Vincent's eyes and chest hurt, his hip hurts, and he feels all wet and tired and shaky.

“Pencils get lost, and get broken,” Steve says. “It happens. Let's get you new ones.”

“But I want my special birthday pencils,” Vincent says.

“I know you do,” Steve says. 

Vincent cranes his head to look, though, when Steve brings up the art shop website and finds the colours Vincent is missing. He taps the little buttons and types in his details until the words 'Order Received!' come up on the screen.

“New pencils Monday, okay?” Steve says.

“Okay,” Vincent sighs.

“I know you don't like your name sometimes, maybe all the time,” Steve says, and Vincent shakes his head. “And I know we said at the beginning that you can choose your name. But can I show you something? Before you decide to change it.” 

“Okay,” Vincent says again.

Steve clicks on another page, one with beautiful pictures. There are lots of blues, and yellows, and oranges, sometimes all mixed up together. There are yellow fields, dark streets, and rich blue skies full of stars.

“There was a man, a long time ago, who painted all these pictures. He was an artist, like you are, and I am, and he sometimes had very bad days, too. And can you guess what his name was?” Steve prompts.

“Vincent,” Vincent says.

“That's right,” Steve says. 

“They're really pretty,” Vincent says, reaching out to touch a little picture to make it get big. A tall, straight tree stands in the centre, and a road that looks more like a river passes its trunk. In the sky, there's a tiny slice of moon and a single bright star.

“Yeah, they are,” Steve says, and kisses Vincent's forehead.

After looking through all the pictures and having a very nice dinner, Vincent decides not to change his name. At least, not until the next Bad Day.

**Kris**

“Raaaar!” Kris says, and leaps off the back of the sofa.

“Oof,” says Steve.

“HULK SMASH,” Kris says and bounces, and Steve goes “oof” again.

“It's lesson time,” Steve reminds him.

“HULK SMASH LESSONS?” Kris roars.

Unfortunately, it's spelling, instead.

“SMASH!” Kris yells, and a fragment of his tablet shell actually splits away and spins on the tile.

“Wow,” Tony says, after staring for a long moment. “I want him stress testing stuff for R&D. I dropped one of those from three floors up onto the marble in the lobby and couldn't so much as chip it.”

Steve rolls his eyes. “Time out, two minutes,” he sighs.

Kris growls like a lion and stomps all the way there with huge, exaggerated steps.

One day, he won't need lessons, because when he gets big, he's gonna be the Hulk and he can just SMASH to get what he wants.

When he relates that to Steve, Steve's face just looks to Kris like maybe he needs a nap.

From over on the couch where he's sitting, Yasha barks a laugh. “You tell 'em, kid,” he says.

Steve rubs a hand over his face. “You're not helping,” he says to Yasha.

Yasha just giggles.

Steve says what Kris knows is a _super bad word_ , and Yasha cackles louder.

“I take it back, I am absolutely moving in, just gimme a lease and a key, right now,” Yasha says.

Steve goes all kind of still and quiet. “Really?”

“Yeah, sure, why not?” Yasha says, not laughing any more but his smile still there.

Steve suddenly doesn't look tired, and he's smiling, too.

Kris takes the opportunity to sneak up close.

“Rrrrrraaaaaargh!” he yells, and jumps up to land right in Yasha's lap.

Yasha makes a funny noise, high-pitched and breathy, and then, it's Steve laughing, so hard his face is all red. Yasha grabs Kris, moves him to the side a bit so that he's standing on one of Yasha's legs, and glares past him at Steve.

“No takebacks,” Steve says, pointing a finger at Yasha. “You said you'd stay.”

He's still laughing, and Yasha takes several deep, careful breaths. “Fine,” he says between gritted teeth. “But I'm buying a cup.”

Kris doesn't know why Steve seems to think that's so funny, but after a few more big breaths, even Yasha's smile has returned a little. He bonks his forehead kinda hard against Yasha's, leaning right into his face and growling. Yasha smiles wide, showing his teeth, and growls back.

**Author's Note:**

> When I was small, I was given a tin of twelve watercolour pencils as a gift by my very remarkable and artistic grandmother. It wasn't until I was a teenager that I learnt that I was using them 'the wrong way'. Rather than drawing and then painting over with a wash of water, I'd dip the pencil in a cup of water and draw with the softened tip.
> 
> The painting Vincent likes is [Road with Cypress and Star](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_with_Cypress_and_Star) by Vincent Van Gogh.
> 
> Edit to add: For those who are interested in the subject matter, here are some informative simple PSAs about difficulties some people can have with learning and other life skills. Learning disabilities and difficulties can be really subtle and easy to mistake as deliberate bad behaviour. Even if you're not a teacher or don't have kids, pretty much everybody knows somebody who struggles with schooling, employment or socialisation. These might help explain why, even if the person you know doesn't have a diagnosis, or hasn't disclosed a diagnosis. Educating yourself by just glancing at these could mean you can help them out, or know to give them a bit of an easier time if they're struggling with something that looks simple.
> 
> [Executive Function Around The Clock](http://iamshadow21.tumblr.com/post/97097363491/kuzlalala-this-is-for-those-who-dont) by [National Center for Learning Disabilities](http://LD.org)  
> [An Inside Look at ADHD](http://iamshadow21.tumblr.com/post/98867324081/piefacemcgee-theblueboxonbakerstreet) by [Brain Balance](http://brainbalancegreaterphilly.com)


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